In addition, other objects, desirable features and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent summary and detailed description, and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background.
In current aircraft, environmental control systems (ECS) and cooling systems are mainly based on a setup that ensures coping with a maximum heat load over a complete flight envelope and on the ground. Also, transient conditions are usually taken into consideration, resulting in ECS, which tend to have an excessive power reserve and an excessive power consumption. Also, expanding an originally defined flight envelope and/or the operational range or simply meeting the need of additional cooling capabilities require a complete redesign of the basic environmental control system.
In aircraft applications, especially for cooling electronic devices, supplemental cooling systems are known, which make use of cooling agents that are distributed through dedicated cooling circuits. In an alternative, the electronic devices may comprise cooling fins, which are impinged by a flow of a cooled gas.
It is also known to equip heat generating components, especially electronics devices, with power-consuming heat transfer devices like Peltier elements or heat pipes, which still have to dissipate the heat load to ambient air, e.g. through fins mounted on the hot side of the heat transfer devices. However, the ambient air temperature around the vehicle, especially an aircraft, may sometimes rise up to 71° C. on hot days on the ground, which may complicate a sufficient heat transfer.
DE 10 2011 014 565 A1 discloses an air conditioning system for an aircraft having a main cooling system for providing cooled air into a cabin of the aircraft and a cryogenic reservoir for holding a cryogenic fluid, wherein the cooling system is adapted for cooling air through heating of the cryogenic fluid.